Hi, my name is Amin Azzam I'm a psychiatrist by training and at heart a passionate educator.
I work at three San Francisco Bay Area health science universities and also at Osmosis.
Today I'd like to talk to you about how to effectively manage small group learning via videoconference.
I'm going to break up my advice into three domains
Things to do before, during, and after the session.
Before the session: Practice yourself.
It's a good idea to create a test video conference session and familiarize yourself with the specifics of the platform that you're using.
One tip would be to use multiple of your own devices to simulate having multiple learners
or partner with your colleagues to help you "tech test" the technology. Also before the session: It's a good idea to communicate to your learners
what you expect of them before the session starts.
So you might also advise your learners to do a test run of their technology before the session.
Declare if you need participants to use a screen larger than a cell phone. For example:
If you intend to share your screen and also expect students to engage with each other concurrently,
then a cell phone screen is just not big enough.
Remind everyone to prepare and behave professionally. For example:
dressing appropriately for a school or educational setting, being in an appropriate place where you can speak or they can speak without any background
distractions or background noise. During the session, there are several different domains to think about to optimize your efficacy.
First, in terms of running the session:
One strategy is to queue up or stack the next speakers so that they know they will speak next.
So, for example: "We're gonna' go to Nancy first and then Jordan." And then once Jordan speaks
you'll say "OK Jordan you're next and then we'll go to Marwa."
Of course remind everyone to mute themselves when they're not talking.
Using the chat feature: I encourage you to use this for questions or getting more involvement without people talking over each other or interrupting each other.
Remind users that they can use the chat to speak to everyone or that they can send private chats to individuals on the call.
Remember, however that when the speaker is sharing their screen they may not be able to see the chat feature concurrently.
So declare that to the learners before you start sharing your screen
so they're aware that you're not simultaneously watching the chat feed. In terms of student engagement
there's several tips I have for you. First of all, put the cameras on to engage fully present learners.
In fact, you should tell them to only turn off their camera if bandwidth is causing an issue and choppiness.
But let them declare that explicitly in the chat feature. Have students randomly check in by having the presenter say:
"Type yes in the chat if you hear this." This really reminds them that you're asking them to attend to what you're doing and engaging
throughout the session. As students are checking into or joining the meeting,
you can ask everyone to check in socially.
This efficiently uses the delay time while you're waiting for additional learners-- the usual ten minutes after the hour type thing.
But it also concurrently forces students to tech test their technology & make sure their speakers are working & their microphones working, etc.
Another tip would be to rename the audio only participants' phone numbers with their actual human names so that way video
participants know who's on the phone. You might even consider inviting the students to rename themselves.
So in their participant name they can not only name themselves,
but put in parentheses where they're physically located during the session.
You might also consider asking a student volunteer to scribe the session,
either in the chat feature or somewhere else like in a shared document. That way you're capturing a log of what the dialogue was
for after the session is complete. Next in terms of managing multitasking:
Look we all try to multitask all the time. We are equally guilty of it as our students.
But the science of learning will tell you that we're learning less when we multitask and it's not sticking as long.
I want to encourage you to encourage your learners to single-task for a change of pace.
In fact, you might even want to explicitly say: "Please don't fold laundry, please don't workout concurrently, please don't write other emails."
"My goal is to be fully present with you during this session, and I'm asking you to
respectfully be fully present with me as well."
In fact, you might explicitly declare that.
And that way you're role modeling for them the best of professional behavior in online synchronous videoconference learning.
After the session is complete:
We ask our learners to reflect on their performance
so I'm inviting you to reflect on your performance
as somebody facilitating a small group videoconference. We can continuously grow as educators,
so I would invite you to consider any of the following frameworks: The plus/delta.
What are things I did well, and what are things that need to be improved?
The stop/start/keep framework. What are things that I should stop doing in future videoconference sessions?
What are things I will keep? And what are things I should start? What's my key takeaway or carry forward into my practice?
What's the one thing-- one thing-- that I will do differently the next time I try small group videoconference sessions?
Then lastly, solicit feedback from your learners. Let's be bravely asking our students what to give us feedback on.
How can we improve our efficacy as video small group facilitators?
You can try any of the frameworks I mentioned above: Plus/Delta,
Stop/Start/Keep, Key takeaway. One improvement. Doesn't matter the framework, but have a framework so that you can use it.
Better yet, how about you ask your students to give us the old feedback sandwich that we give to them when we give
them feedback. So for those who don't know that-- I don't know who in the
educator world wouldn't know the feedback sandwich. Just to remind you: bread is something you did well.
Meat (or tofu if you're a vegetarian) is something that you could do better. And bread is something you did well
Good feedback is important-- sort of making sure that good behavior is continuing.
Because if we don't tell our learners, or if they don't tell us what we did well,
then we won't necessarily continue the good stuff too. So ask your students to give you a feedback sandwich on ways you can improve--
to be a more effective small group leader of facilitating videoconference small groups.
All right. So as a quick recap: there are several things you can do to effectively facilitate small group learning via videoconference.
Before the session: Practice the technology yourself and communicate your expectations to the learners.
During the session: Think about how you will run the session, use the chat feature,
encourage student engagement, and manage multitasking.
After the session: Reflect on your own performance, and solicit feedback from your learners.
I hope that was helpful. If you don't have the resources you need at your school, or if you have questions:
Please reach out to us at partnerships@osmosis org. Happy educating.